Up A Tree In The Park At Night With A Hedgehog

So this is my review for it, and even as I type I'm still undecided on what i actually think about the book

While I was reading it I kept feeling like a needy chick asking questions...What is the point? Where is this all going? Can this guy's friends and family really be this odd?

This isn't really a story, and it doesn't really have a plot it is more a loosely connected series of 'funny' moments. OK I feel bad putting funny in inverted commas there are some humorous moments mainly involving physical harm happening to people

This book would be good for readers of things like Nuts magazine I would imagine as it is written in short punchy segments and features physical harm and sexual relations with virginal Koreans

I just didn't really get the point of it all, maybe the point is above to appeal to Nuts readers. Jasper Fforde has described it as page turningly odd and it is a page turner and it is certainly odd but I'm not sure that Mr Fforde is being entirely complimentary

I don't regret reading this book - and I very well might read another P. Robert Smith should a free copy come my way and I have a train journey to make and I'm not reading another book

Hater by David Moody

So here it is the first review - I've just got back from the cinema after seeing Frost/Nixon so I'm doing several bad impersonations of Richard Nixon or at least Frank Langella doing Richard Nixon. And the weather is pretty much a blizzard here right now - anyway I digress

Hater by David Moody

This book was originally self published by the author a few years ago and there is a new edition coming out by Sci-Fi and Fantasy imprint Gollancz in February 2009

Danny our protagonist is not an unlikeable guy but he's more lazy Joe than average Joe but his kids, now there's another story they make me thankful I don't have kids they are just so annoying

Set in the UK Danny is witness to a violent attack of an old woman by a businessman but soon the violence escalates and man is attacking it's fellow humans and the reasons are never clear. Infact no reasons are given in the book, characters speculate but I liked the fact that the reason for the sudden and violent attacks is never fully explained

Danny's story is punctuated by vignettes of violence that are raw and brutally described and they really help to heighten the tension - there is a particularly nasty scene set in a hospital involving a scalpel but I shall say no more- but it may make some men a little queasy

In the last quarter of the book the story takes a turn and moves quickly towards the end - which has been left open for the forthcoming sequels - how the story can and does continue I'm not sure but if it is as succinctly written as this book it should be no slog to get through

The film have apparently been bought by Guillermo del Toro and I look forward to seeing how this is brought to the screen. Yes there is horror and gore here but it is the ordinariness, the banality that makes it shocking. del Toro says 'Hater will haunt long after you read the last page' while it didn't haunt me the adrenalin from the last quarter certainly kept me up at night

This is a blokey book but should appeal to those who enjoyed the films Dog Soldiers and 28 Days Later, but be warned this is not a Zombie book

Welcome

Hello all!

This is the relaunch of the blog that I started to write over a year ago with a review of Vulcan's Forge by Jack du Brul. I don't blame him or the book for it not going any further than that first review

My aim is to type reviews of everything im reading and hopefully embed some youtubery of visual reviews of the books

If you've got any suggestions of books you think I might like then drop me a line and I'll mull them over - my reading isn't as eclectic as I would like to think but anything modern and contemporary I give a try

So see you soon